| The Matrix Reloaded |
| The Matrix Reloaded As always, don�t read if you don�t want to know what happens. Also, don�t read if you don�t want to be here for 3 years. This one�s long. The first Matrix is one of my favorite movies. In my opinion, it has to be considered one of the top 3 action movies of all time. The music fit the movie perfectly, the characters were great. Honestly.....what's better? T2 was just as ground-breaking in the special effects department. It was visually stunning, and had a great plot, and one of the coolest bad guys of all time. Though it's debatable, I personally don't think the plot and the idea behind it are quite as good as in The Matrix. To me, the first Matrix was pretty close to perfect. Enter Reloaded. Everything is back, with the addition of one unfortunate thing: expectations. Everyone knows that this movie can't possibly be as good as the first, but there's something in the back of their minds open to the possibility. We all hoped the second Matrix would be like watching the first Matrix for the first time all over again. Oh how expectations have ruined this movie. By itself, it is one of the better movies out there, at least visually. Throw in the expectations and it looks a lot more like a piece of crap. We start with Trinity being a badass again. Again, she gets herself into trouble with an agent. This time, it doesn't look like she's gonna make it though. She goes falling out of a window with an agent chasing her down, shooting her gun. At this point I had two thoughts. The first was that she's falling in a straight path and that my little brother could have hit her before the agent did. The second was that it was a weird scene. It just didn't feel right. It turns out that the scene is Neo's dream, but that feeling would soon become a recurring one. We begin in the Nebuchad....Nebu..Nebuchanez..... We begin in their ship. Morpheus and the ship's 'operator' are in the cockpit. Tank and his brother aren't there. It's a new guy. I guess maybe they hoped we wouldn't notice? We later find out that they died, but it just felt a little bit off. In this scene, Morpheus emphasizes that he needs people to trust him, foreshadowing the political scene in Zion. They arrive in Zion, where we learn that the machines in the real world are digging down to war with the city. Hmmm.....I forgot that I wanted to talk about the intro. It was pretty neat, with all the green numbers making shapes. I bet that cost a lot. It was worth it though, especially when you could tell we were inside the clock. It seemed that each new thing that the numbers built became building blocks of other items. For example, the galaxy turned out to be a number. This number, combined with a bunch of others built a city, which built a tiny piece of the inside of a clock. Would this become relevant later? Would I have asked that question if it wouldn't? Anyway, we're in Zion, and Neo and Trinity are hornier than anything I've ever seen. Was there a no-sexin' rule on the ship? They make out whenever they can, including during Morpheus' big speech to Zion. It seems that Morpheus doesn't get along with the Zion military commander. Unfortunately, the commander (we'll call him Locke) can't fire Morpheus because the Zion council believes in him. The council president asks Morpheus to talk to the people. He does. It's kind of cheesy sounding. I imagine it's hard to not make an inspirational speech in a movie sound cheesy. Anyhoo, he urges the city to celebrate their past victories over the machines. What comes next, I can't explain. The Wachowski brothers thought we, as the audience, would like to see about 8 minutes of a combination of two things: a city of tattered but attractive and diverse people all dancing in a giant rave setting, and Neo-Trinity love-making. Back and forth we go, from the rave to the sexin', from the sexin' to the rave. I wouldn't have noticed it too much, had it not gone on for 5 minutes. Then it hit the 6th, and I started to get confused. When it hit the 7th, Cathy (my girlfriend, for those of you who don't know me and somehow stumbled onto my page.....sort of like the guy who typed in "Oleg penis" on google.com) threatened to take off her sandal and throw it at the screen. By the end of this scene, people in the audience were just looking around at each other, exchanging glances. More background/story-telling happens. The new ship operator goes home to an irritated wife. Her two brothers have already died on the ship, and she's scared it will happen to him (I think his name was Link, but I don't remember or care). The story-telling was kind of long, but I accept that some stories need to be told before we jump into the ass-kicking. Somewhere around here, there is a scene in which some people in the matrix encounter an agent. It is none other than Agent Smith, the guy Neo dove into and made explode in the first movie. He apparently has a new trick. He can duplicate himself by touching someone and changing them into him. The first guy escapes, with what I assume was the message from the oracle. The second guy gets changed into Agent Smith. Too bad for that guy, we think. Then he answers the phone and gets sucked into the real world, or at least the guy who he has possessed or captured, or whatever he does to duplicate. Oh dear. That's not good. Apparently, Neo is super-powerful in the matrix, but doesn't understand where he fits in. He is some kind of Messiah, but he does not understand what to do to realize his goal. So the reason we see all this story telling, I guess, is to see Neo's frustration. He has to idle, while everyone waits for the oracle's message. Finally, this message comes, and we transition from background story and settings to new plot. Neo enters the matrix and meets some guy. They fight a pretty even fight across the room, on tables, etc. Then he explains that the oracle has enemies and that he had to be sure he was the one. But hold on....there's someone else who can fight like Neo? Does the oracle have what they used to think was the one? I don't know. Anyway, the guy takes Neo through some kind of secret passageway that Neo calls a back door. It�s apparently built into the Matrix for those who know how to use it. Neo goes to see the oracle. She tells him that he has already made the choice and now he has to understand why. Neo doesn't believe in fate, so he gets upset. We then find out that Neo thinks that the oracle is a program, and that he is right. That other bodyguard guy is a program too, we find out. Weird. I thought the programs couldn't fight Neo because they were built on rules. Anyway, the oracle goes on telling him that there are all kinds of programs running all the time. They all have a purpose. The only ones you hear about are programs not doing what they were built to do, getting too ambitious or selfish or something. Then she goes off on a philosophical rant. I don't know what just got said. Maybe I did, but all the philosophical babbling that comes later is the equivalent of 8 shots of tequila to your brain. You don't understand what just happened to you, but it probably wasn't good. The bodyguard and oracle leave, because... |